Fish are different and I would say they are both males if the duller one is still noticeably blue. In any case to spawn Malawi you would want more than one female. The male is likely to kill a single female because Malawi are harem breeders.

Knowing many of the breeders, some of which supply to both a lot of the online stores(what? did you think they bred them themselves?) and the big boxes I can pretty much say they are not accurate on telling you they only get males.

Here is what I have seen at a typical breeder's facility. Breeders have their choice tanks where their good fish are. These are the ones whose fry go to the online and regular stores. They have their own well cared for grow out tanks some of which are in climate controlled rooms and buildings. My friend has his expensive good stuff in a cinder block building with heating and AC and a heavy roof just in case of hurricanes and severe cold weather. Outside there are green houses with rows of big grow out tanks. In addition there are big pools some of which have multiple species(usually not the kind that interbreed). These are more or less left alone so the fish breed and every so often he goes in and nets out the young(typically doesnt waste time stripping unless he happens to net up a holding female but doesnt go out of his way). There are a couple more grow out pools where he tosses the young fish to grow out and this is where the fish that go to big boxes come from. He goes in with a net, nets up those of the right size and sticks them in bags and mails them(its a little more complicated than that but thats the short of it). Most fish at the ages they send, you really cant tell the difference between males and females. I know in my early days of cichlid keeping I found male and female peacocks all the time at Petsmart(oh and I worked at one for a few months while in college too).

my fish shown above is a male i guess, just by his color. if he is in fact an electric blue hap, why doesn't he have egg spots? is the egg spot thing a myth? he does have one but it is very tiny. poor fish

do egg spots only show on males or can females display them as well? i always read that males have them.